years. In Goethe's Tages- und Jahres-Hefte, he refers to two friends,
Reimer and Voigt, as being cognizant in 1807 of his theory. Why
did not one or other of these make known to Oken that he had
been so anticipated? “I told my friends to keep quiet,” writes
Goethe in 1825! Spix, in the meanwhile, in 1815, contributes
his share to the development of Oken's idea in his Cephalogenesis.
Ulrich follows in 1816 with his Schildkrötenschädel; next appears
the contribution, in 1818, by L. H. Bojanus, to the vertebral theory
of the skull, amplified in the Paragon to that anatomist's admirable
Anatome Testudinis Europaeae (1821). And now for the first time,
in 1818, Bojanus, visiting some friends at Weimar, there hears the
rumour that his friend Oken had been anticipated by the great
poet. He communicates it to Oken, who, like an honest man, at
once published the statement made by Goethe's friends in the Isis
of that year, offering no reflection on the poet, but restricting himself
to a detailed and interesting account of the circumstances under
which he himself had been led independently to make his discovery
when wandering in 1806 through the Harz. It was enough for him
thus to vindicate his own claims; he abstains from any comment
reflecting on Goethe, and maintained the same blameless silence
when Goethe ventured for the first time to claim for himself, in 1820,
the merit of having entertained the same idea, or made the discovery,
thirty years previously.
The German naturalists held their annual meeting at Jena in 1836, and there Kieser publicly bore testimony, from personal knowledge, to the circumstances and dates of Oken's discovery. However, in the edition of Hegel's works by Michelet (Berlin, 1842), there appeared the following paragraph: “The type-bone is the dorsal vertebra, provided inwards with a hole and outwards with processes, every bone being only a modification of it. This idea originated with Goethe, who worked it out in a treatise written in 1785, and published it in his Morphologie (1820), p. 162. Oken, to whom the treatise was communicated, has pretended that the idea was his own property, and has reaped the honour of it.” This accusation again called out Oken, who thoroughly refuted it in an able, circumstantial and temperate statement in part vii. of the Isis (1847). Goethe's osteological essay of 1785, the only one he printed in that century, is on a different subject. In the Morphologie of 1820-1824 Goethe distinctly declares that he had never published his ideas on the vertebral theory of the skull. He could not, therefore, have sent any such essay to Oken before the year 1807. Oken, in reference to his previous endurance of Goethe's pretensions, states that, “being well aware that his fellow-labourers in natural science thoroughly appreciated the true state of the case, he confided in quiet silence in their judgment. Meckel, Spix, Ulrich, Bojanus, Carus, Cuvier, Geoffroy St Hilaire, Albers, Straus-Durckheim, Owen, Kieser and Lichtenstein had recorded their judgment in his favour and against Goethe. But upon the appearance of the new assault in Michelet's edition of Hegel he could no longer remain silent.”
Oken's bold axiom that heat is but a mode of motion of light, and the idea broached in his essay on generation (1805) that “all the parts of higher animals are made up of an aggregate of Infusoria or animated globular monads,” are both of the same order as his proposition of the head being a repetition of the trunk, with its vertebrae and limbs. Science would have profited no more from the one idea without the subsequent experimental discoveries of H. C. Oersted and M. Faraday, or from the other without the microscopical observations of Robert Brown, J. M. Schleiden and T. Schwann, than from the third notion without the inductive demonstration of the segmental constitution of the skull by Owen. It is questionable, indeed, whether in either case the discoverers of the true theories were excited to their labours, or in any way influenced, by the a priori guesses of Oken; more probable is it that the requisite researches and genuine deductions therefrom were the results of the correlated fitness of the stage of the science and the gifts of its true cultivators at such particular stage.
The following is a list of Oken's principal works: Grundriss der Naturphilosophie, der Theorie der Sinne, und der darauf gegründeten Classification der Thiere (1802); Die Zeugung (1805); Abriss der Biologie (1805); Beiträge zur vergleichenden-Zoologie, Anatomie und Physiologie (along with Kieser, 1806-1807); Ueber die Bedeutung der Schädelknochen (1807); Ueber das Universum als Fortsetzung des Sinnensystems (1808); Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts, der Finsterniss, der Farben und der Wärme (1808); Grundzeichnung des natürlichen Systems der Erze (1809); Ueber den Werth der Naturgeschichte (1809); Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie (1809-1811; 2nd ed., 1831; 3rd ed., 1843; Eng. trans., Elements of Physiophilosophy, 1847); Lehrbuch der Naturgeschichte (1813, 1815, 1825); Handbuch der Naturgeschichte zum Gebrauch bei Vorlesungen (1816-1820); Naturgeschichte für Schulen (1821); Esquisse d'un Système d'Anatomie, de Physiologie, et d'Histoire Naturelle (1812); Allgemeine Naturgeschichte (1833-1842, 14 vols.). He also contributed a large number of papers to the Isis and other journals. (R. O.)
OKHOTSK, SEA OF, a part of the western Pacific Ocean, lying between the peninsula of Kamchatka, the Kurile Islands, the Japanese island of Yezo, the island of Sakhalin, and the Amur province of East Siberia. The Sakhalin Gulf and Gulf of Tartary connect it with the Japanese Sea on the west of the island of Sakhalin, and on the south of this island is the La Pérouse Strait.
OKI, a group of islands belonging to Japan, lying due north of the province of Izumo, at the intersection of 36° N. and 133° E. The group consists of one large island called Dogo, and three smaller isles—Chiburi-shima, Nishi-no-shima, and Naka-no-shima—which are collectively known as Dozen. These four islands have a coast-line of 182 m., an area of 130 sq. m., and a population of 63,000. The island of Dogo has two high peaks, Daimanji-mine (2185 ft.) and Omine-yama (2128 ft.). The chief town is Saigo in Dogo, distant about 40 m. from the port of Sakai in Izumo. The name Oki-no-shima signifies “islands in the offing,” and the place is celebrated in Japanese history not only because the possession of the islands was much disputed in feudal days, but also because an ex-emperor and an emperor were banished thither by the Hojo regents in the 13th century.
OKLAHOMA (a Choctaw Indian word meaning “red people”), a south central state of the United States of America lying between 33° 35' and 37° N. lat. and 94° 29' and 103° W. long. It is bounded N. by Colorado and Kansas; E. by Missouri and Arkansas; S. by Texas, from which it is separated in part by the Red river; and W. by Texas and New Mexico. It has a total area of 70,057 sq. m., of which 643 sq. m. are water-surface. Although the extreme western limit of the state is the 103rd meridian, the only portion W. of the 100th meridian is a strip of land about 35 m. wide in the present Beaver, Texas and Cimarron counties, and formerly designated as “No Man's Land.”
Physiography.—The topographical features of the state exhibit considerable diversity, ranging from wide treeless plains in the W. to rugged and heavily wooded mountains in the E. In general terms, however, the surface may be described as a vast rolling plain having a gentle southern and eastern slope. The elevations above the sea range from 4700 ft. in the extreme N.W. to about 350 ft. in the S.E. The southern and eastern slopes are remarkably uniform; between the northern and southern boundaries E. of the 100th meridian there is a general difference in elevation of from 200 to 300 ft., while from W. to E. there is an average decline of about 3 ft. to the mile. The state has a mean elevation of 1300 ft. with 34,930 sq. m. below 1000 ft; 25,400 sq. m. between 1000 and 2000 ft.; 6500 sq. m. between 2000 and 3000 ft.; and 3600 sq. m. between 3000 and 5000 ft.
The western portion of the Ozark Mountains enters Oklahoma near the centre of the eastern boundary, and extends W.S.W. half way across the state in a chain of hills gradually decreasing in height. In the south central part of the state is an elevated tableland known as the Arbuckle Mountains. In its western portion this tableland attains an elevation of about 1350 ft. above the sea and lies about 400 ft. above the bordering plains. At its eastern termination, where it merges with the plains, it has an elevation of about 750 ft. Sixty miles N.W. of this plateau lie the Wichita Mountains, a straggling range of rugged peaks rising abruptly from a level plain. This range extends from Fort Sill north-westward beyond Granite, a distance of 65 m., with some breaks in the second half of this area. The highest peaks are not more than 1500 ft. above the plain, but on account of their steep and rugged slopes they are difficult to ascend. A third group of hills, the Chautauqua Mountains, lie in the W. in Blaine and Canadian counties, their main axis being almost parallel with the North Fork of the Canadian river. With the exception of these isolated clusters of hills the western portion of the state consists almost entirely of rolling prairie. The extreme north-western part of Oklahoma is a lofty tableland forming part of the Great Plains region E. of the Rocky Mountains.
The prairies N. of the Arkansas and W. of the Neosho rivers are deeply carved by small streams, and in the western portion of this area, where the formation consists of alternating shales and sandstones, the easily eroded rocks have been carved into canyons, buttes and mesas. South of the Arkansas river these ledges of sandstone continue as far as Okmulgee, but the evidences of erosion are less noticeable. East of the Neosho river the prairies merge into a hilly woodland. In the N.W. four large salt plains form a striking physical feature. Of these the most noted is the Big Salt Plain of the Cimarron river, in Woodward county, which varies in width from ½ m. to 2 m. and extends along the river for 8 m. The plain is almost perfectly level, covered with snowy-white saline crystals, and contains many salt springs. The other saline areas are the Little Salt Plain, which lies on the Cimarron river, near the Kansas boundary; the Salt Creek Plain, 3 m. long and 100 yds. wide, in Blaine county; and the Salt Fork Plain, 6 m. wide and 8 m. long, so called from its position on the Salt Fork of the Arkansas river.
